30 Years of Memories

30 YEARS OF MEMORIES

by Barry Spitz

In 1982, I succeeded the late James Farren, Jr.—the stretch of Dipsea Trail between Cardiac and Lone Tree was named Farren’s Rest after his ashes were scattered there—as the Dipsea Race finish and awards ceremony announcer. I’ve now held the job 30 consecutive years, and hope for yet a few more ahead.

            Those three decades have produced many indelible memories. Here are some of my favorites.   

--For the first 15 years, I ran over the Dipsea Trail from Mill Valley to Stinson before the race, showered at the beach, then begin announcing. The trail was utterly serene at dawn. Add the anticipation of the drama ahead and it became an almost mystical experience. Some years I went solo, others with friends such as Dave Atchison and Jim Myers. I gave it up after the showers were closed for repairs, the race start time was moved 30 minutes earlier, and my pace slowed. Myers still does it, and says, “It is so quiet, but you feel the tension. There’s a race about to begin.”  

--By the mid-1980s, George Frazier’s quixotic quest for a top-35 black shirt had become the stuff of local legend. In 1985, it looked like another near miss until a pair of incredible events unfolded over the last yards. Keith Hastings, ahead, started walking, dizzy. Then, just before the finish line, the apparent 35th finisher, Herb Vanek, slumped to the ground, pulling the spectator fence down with him. I kept screaming “Frazier wins the shirt” as George passed him, a refrain that became the opening line in Tim Amyx’s film “The Dipsea Race.” Frazier later said of the shirt, “It’s been my biggest goal in life. They can bury me in it.”  

--I’ve always yearned for a sprint finish for first place, but there hasn’t been one since 1979, and before that, 1948. The closest race I got to call was 1988, when the first four runners, all women, were on the final straightaway at once. Kay Willoughby won. Seven seconds later, Peggy Smyth finished in a women’s record time that still stands. Just two more seconds back was Patricia English, in the second fastest ever time. Nine seconds later, Eve Pell crossed.  

--By the late 1980s, Sal Vasquez had won a record four times, and was already recognized as the greatest of all Dipsea racers. But in 1990 it looked as if he would be beaten, by an eight-year-old girl. Megan McGowan led the entire way but Vasquez, starting 17 minutes after her, kept cutting the gap. I reported the unfolding drama to the large finish line crowd. Finally, just before the checkpoint on Highway 1, Vasquez passed McGowan and I relayed the news. Exactly 20 years later, I updated onlookers on the race-long duel between Reilly Johnson, another eight-year-old girl, and Melody-Anne Schultz, 68. That time, youth prevailed.

--I was one of many admirers of Steve Lyons, who won 17 black shirts before being stricken with ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In 2003, he decided to run one last Dipsea. Just after finishing, he stumbled ever so slightly. Far, far worse is commonplace but this was Steve Lyons, one of the most graceful of athletes. It made a searing impression. Lyons came to the next Dipsea in a wheelchair and drew the loudest and most heartfelt ovation I’ve witnessed at the race. He died in 2005.

--Jack Kirk, the “Dipsea Demon,” was the race’s most memorable figure. Over the years, as he slowed, I would just wait at the announcer’s stand, eating my lunch, for his arrival. In 2003, Kirk, age 95, once again approached the finish line, more than an hour after anyone else, accompanied by a Highway Patrol motorcycle escort. It was an extraordinary moment. Days later it was revealed that Kirk had actually accepted a ride down the last part of the course, primarily to keep these patrolmen from waiting too long. It was the first Dipsea he had not completed since 1929, and he never started another.

--For the race’s 75th running, the Tamalpa Runners flew in Norman Bright, another of the Dipsea’s great figures, then 75 and completely blind. At the awards ceremony, Bright presented the first Norman Bright Trophy, for “extraordinary effort in the Dipsea Race,” to none other than Jack Kirk. It couldn’t get any better.

--My daughters Sally, now 21, and Lily, 20, were enlisted as “runners” as soon as they could walk. They would run to me, clutching papers with the lead runner’s numbers recorded by wife Pam at the nearby radio booth. Both daughters graduated to “spotters,” helping me call out finisher’s names, then to “keypunchers” when a laptop computer was added to my arsenal. Their help always made Dipsea Day even more special.

--Mason Hartwell won his seventh Best Time trophy in 1926, and no one came close to matching it until Mike McManus began racking them up in the 1980s. In 1993, McManus was going for No. 7, and it was considered a sure thing since he won the award every year he raced as an adult. Mason’s son Thomas Hartwell, then 75, came to watch his father’s record finally tied, Thomas stood beside me when the first runners arrived. Incredibly, a Dipsea newcomer from New Hampshire, Dave Dunham, just bested McManus for Time honors, by eight seconds.